The present invention relates to communications networks. More particularly, and not by way of limitation, the present invention is directed to a system and method of detecting a sleeping cell in a telecommunications network (GSM, CDMA, UMTS or LTE technologies). As an example, UMTS system has been used. The same principle can be extrapolated to other technologies (GSM, CDMA or LTE). In the current Universal Mobile Terrestrial System (UMTS) network, there are cells that do not setup traffic and have no alarms alerting the operator of the degraded situation. FIG. 1 illustrates a simplified block diagram of a UMTS network 100 that comprises a 3G network referred to as a core network 102 and a UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network (UTRAN) 104. The UTRAN comprises a plurality of Radio Networks Controllers (RNCs) 106. There is a plurality of RNCs performing various roles. Each RNC is connected to a set of base stations. A base station is often called a Node-B. A base station typically has three sectors (also referred to as cells in UMTS). Each Node-B 108 is responsible for communication with one or more User Equipments (UEs) 110 within a given geographical cell 112. The serving RNC is responsible for routing user and signaling data between a Node-B and the core network.
A Sleeping cell is an unlocked cell that is transmitting on the broadcast channel which has no alarms and is unable to setup traffic (packet or voice calls). Currently, there are no methods or systems for detecting sleeping cells in a telecommunications network.